Aya Sawamura

There was a girl in our class that had come from Kyoto. Her name was Aya Sawamura. 

She joined our school when the first year of highschool began. She was in the same class as me in first year too. She used to stay quiet all the time. She was so quiet that once a teacher in our first year complimented her quietness and made her blush. 

One day, our maths teacher was absent and another teacher came as a substitute. 

Now, Sawamura-san sat alone on the desk next to the window. The entire row of desks had no student seated except for Sawamura-san. She never talked to anyone nor did anyone ever talk to her. 

The desk behind me was empty as Megumi was absent. She had not been attending school for a week and everyone was worried. 

Kaoru was absent too. She had started to skip school a lot now. 

The teacher saw her sitting alone and asked her to sit behind me. She said that she wanted that row of desks to be empty as it didn't look pleasing that only one student was sitting there. Sawamura-san was very hesitant to get up. She didn't even reply to the teacher and I think the teacher thought she was disrespecting her. 

"Does she not talk?," she asked Seiko. 

"No, ma'am. She doesn't say a single word," she answered. 

"Get up and sit in this row!," she said. 

But the girl didn't answer at all. 

I looked at her kindly and told her to sit behind me. She, then, hesitantly got up and sat behind me. 

"What a weird girl," the teacher said, rolling her eyes.

"May I know your name?," I asked her. 

"Aya Sawamura," she said. 

"Why do you always stay so quiet in class?," I asked her. 

"I don't like to talk to anyone," she said. 

She spoke very softly. 

She was very fair and had very clear skin. Her hair were very beautiful and her hands were pretty too. 

That day, I talked to Aya for hours. Seiko and Aoi also talked to her a lot. By the end of the day, we had known a lot of things about her. 

Her dad had been transferred to Tokyo from Kyoto and that was why she was living here. She had two younger sisters: Akari and Hayami. Akari was in the second year of middle school and Hayami was in kindergarten. 

One day, when we were having lunch, I saw Aya taking out a heart shaped chocolate from her bag. 

"Aya, you brought chocolate?," I asked. 

"Yeah, I thought me and Tamako would eat it together. So I brought it for us," she said. 

That made me really happy. I felt very grateful that someone had thought of me so considerately. 

Aya had become really close to me now. She herself said that I was the first friend she had made in this school. She did say that she used to talk to a girl named Amai Amon in first year but I was her first friend. I felt really proud of myself for befriending someone so beautiful and so quiet. 

But little did I know that things were going to change really soon.